Is the US government hiding aliens? The claims and the evidence
Updated October 29, 2026
Short answer
There is no public evidence that the US government holds alien craft or bodies. Former intelligence officer David Grusch and others have claimed, some under oath, that a secret crash-retrieval program exists, but none has shown physical proof in public, and the Pentagon's UFO office, AARO, says it found no evidence of extraterrestrial technology or a reverse-engineering program. What is documented is real secrecy: hidden UFO study programs, classified aircraft mistaken for UFOs, and military cover stories that fed alien myths.
The claims
The modern version of the claim starts with David Grusch, a former intelligence officer who served on the Pentagon's UAP task force. Testifying under oath to a House Oversight subcommittee on July 26, 2023, he said he had been "informed in the course of my official duties of a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program to which I was denied access."
Asked by Rep. Nancy Mace whether bodies had been recovered, he said "biologics" came with some recoveries and that they were "non-human," in the assessment of people with direct knowledge of the program. He said his account rests on interviews with more than 40 witnesses, that he had not seen the material himself, and that details could be given only in a classified setting. Others followed:
- Luis Elizondo, who says he ran the Pentagon's AATIP effort, wrote in his book *Imminent* (August 2024) that a decades-long crash-retrieval effort works with defense contractors and holds non-human technology and remains.
- At a House hearing on November 13, 2024, journalist Michael Shellenberger gave lawmakers an anonymous document describing "Immaculate Constellation," an alleged hidden program that collects UAP images and data.
- At a hearing on September 9, 2025, three current and former service members described objects they could not explain, and Rep. Eric Burlison showed a video he said was filmed off Yemen on October 30, 2024, in which a Hellfire missile hits a glowing object and appears to glance off it.
- *The Age of Disclosure* (November 2025), a documentary featuring 34 current and former government, military and intelligence figures, argues there has been an 80-year cover-up of non-human intelligence.
The official answers
The Pentagon answered Grusch in June 2023, after his first interviews: its UFO office had "not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently."
AARO's Historical Record Report, Volume 1 (March 2024), reviewed government UFO work back to 1945 and interviewed about 30 people. It found no evidence that any sighting was extraterrestrial technology and no empirical evidence for claims of reverse-engineering programs. It traced many stories to "circular reporting" by a small group of people repeating each other, and to real secret programs that were misread. One example: Kona Blue, a 2010s proposal to the Department of Homeland Security to study recovered alien technology, was never approved, and AARO said the material was only assumed to exist by its advocates.
On Immaculate Constellation, a Pentagon spokesperson said the department has "no record, present or historical" of any such program. AARO's annual report for fiscal 2025, released in July 2026, logged 319 reports and resolved 114 as balloons, birds, satellites, aircraft or drones; some open reports described performance beyond known technology but came with no technical data.
Grusch says the intelligence community's inspector general found his 2022 complaint "credible and urgent." That is a procedural finding that lets a complaint go to Congress, not a ruling that its claims are true, and the inspector general has not published findings.
The real secrecy that fuels the belief
Suspicion did not come from nowhere. The US government has hidden UFO work before:
- [Project Blue Book](/glossary/project-blue-book) (1952–1969) logged 12,618 sightings and left 701 unidentified, concluding they posed no threat and showed no sign of extraterrestrial vehicles.
- In January 1953 a CIA-convened panel of scientists, the Robertson Panel, recommended a public effort to debunk UFO reports and reduce interest in them.
- In December 2017 *The New York Times* revealed AATIP, a Pentagon UFO program funded with about $22 million from 2008 to 2011 that had never been acknowledged.
- In June 2025 *The Wall Street Journal* reported, from an AARO review, that an Air Force officer in the 1980s gave doctored UFO photos to a bar owner near Area 51 to draw attention away from the secret F-117 stealth jet, and that for decades some new personnel were told about a fake alien program, "Yankee Blue," as a hazing ritual until the Pentagon banned it.
What the 2026 UFO files show, and what they don't
In February 2026, Barack Obama said on a podcast that aliens are "real, but I haven't seen them," then clarified that he "saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us." On February 19, President Trump posted on Truth Social that he would direct agencies to identify and release government files on aliens, UAP and UFOs.
The Pentagon's PURSUE program has since put seven releases on war.gov/UFO, from May 8 to October 23, 2026. The latest, 28 PDFs, includes a 2026 AARO memo on a matte-black triangle near a security site in the West, a report on Utah's Skinwalker Ranch, and a 2002 account by Walter Haut, the Roswell base's press officer in 1947.
The site calls its contents "unresolved cases, meaning the government is unable to make a definitive determination on the nature of the observed phenomena." No release so far contains a confirmed alien craft, body or material, and former AARO director Sean Kirkpatrick and skeptics such as Mick West said the early batches held little that was new. A document in the files proves someone made a claim, not that the claim is true. We read every release on our UFO files page.
Claims vs. evidence at a glance
Where each claim stands as of late October 2026:
- Secret government UFO programs existed: documented (Blue Book, AATIP).
- The military used UFO stories as cover: reported from an AARO review; not fully released.
- A crash-retrieval and reverse-engineering program: claimed under oath; denied by the Pentagon and AARO; no public evidence.
- Non-human bodies: claimed secondhand; no public evidence.
- Immaculate Constellation: alleged in an anonymous document; the Pentagon says it has no record of it.
- The Yemen Hellfire video: shown to Congress; what the object was has not been publicly established.
How to judge the next claim
New video? Our guide to checking UFO videos walks through it. For any other claim, ask five questions:
- Firsthand or secondhand? "People told me" is weaker than "I saw it," and both are weaker than material that can be tested.
- How many sources, really? Many voices repeating one source is circular reporting, not confirmation.
- Is there checkable evidence? Documents with a known origin, sensor data, lab results, officials speaking on the record.
- What does the official wording say? "Unresolved" means unexplained, not alien.
- Does it rest on classified material only? Then it cuts both ways: the public can't verify it, and can't rule it out.
Questions and answers
Is the US government hiding aliens?
There is no public evidence that it is. Whistleblowers say a secret program holds crashed craft and non-human remains, but the Pentagon and its UFO office, AARO, say they found no evidence of extraterrestrial technology, and no physical proof has been shown in public.
What did David Grusch say under oath?
On July 26, 2023 he told a House subcommittee he had been informed of a "multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program" and that recovered "biologics" were non-human, based on what others told him. He said he had not seen the material himself.
What did the AARO report find?
AARO's Historical Record Report, Volume 1 (March 2024), found no evidence that any UAP sighting was extraterrestrial technology and no empirical evidence of a secret reverse-engineering program. It said many claims came from circular reporting and from misread real classified programs.
What is Immaculate Constellation?
The name of an alleged secret Pentagon program that collects UAP images and data, described in an anonymous document given to Congress in November 2024. The Pentagon says it has no record of any such program, and no independent evidence for it has been published.
Did the 2026 UFO files prove aliens are real?
No. The seven war.gov/UFO releases, from May to October 2026, are described by the government itself as unresolved cases, and none contains a confirmed alien craft, body or material.
Why would the government hide UFO information?
Documented reasons include protecting secret aircraft and sensors and hiding capabilities from rivals, especially during the Cold War. According to reporting on an AARO review, some alien myths were spread on purpose to cover real military projects.
What was the Hellfire missile UFO video?
A clip Rep. Eric Burlison showed at a September 9, 2025 House hearing, which he said was filmed off Yemen on October 30, 2024. It shows a missile striking a glowing object that appears to keep moving; what the object was has not been publicly established.
From the past hours
UFO news todaySources
- House Oversight hearing, July 26, 2023: UAP: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency
- House Oversight hearing, November 13, 2024: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth
- Hearing transcript, September 9, 2025: Restoring Public Trust Through UAP Transparency and Whistleblower Protection
- AARO: Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with UAP, Volume 1 (March 2024)
- US Air Force fact sheet: Unidentified Flying Objects and Air Force Project Blue Book
- Department of War: PURSUE UAP file releases (war.gov/UFO)
- DefenseScoop: AARO's FY2025 annual report and the Virginia-coast UAP event (July 21, 2026)
More explainers
- Has the US government confirmed aliens? Here's where things standNo. As of October 29, 2026, no US agency or president has confirmed aliens or non-human intelligence. What AARO, NASA, Trump and Obama actually said.
- The UAP Disclosure Act: what it says and where it standsThe UAP Disclosure Act would force US UFO records into public view. What the bill says, what became law in 2023, and its status in the 2027 defense bill.
- Is That UFO Video Real? How to Check It, Including AI FakesMost viral UFO clips turn out to be satellites, planets, launches, drones, balloons or AI fakes. Here is a 5-step check you can run in minutes.
- UFO disclosure, step by stepEvery official UFO disclosure step, from the 2017 AATIP story to the 2026 PURSUE files and the UAP Disclosure Act fight, dated and sourced.
- Every congressional UFO hearing since 2022, and how to watch the next oneEvery UFO hearing in Congress since 2022: who testified, what was said under oath, the videos shown and what came of it. Plus how to watch the next one.